Donald Trump is at risk of impeachment

Impeachment procedures have been initiated against US presidents only three times in the 230 years since the American constitution was drafted, and little more than 100 days into his term of office, Donald Trump is already at risk of becoming the fourth.

In 1868, Andrew Johnson was impeached after violating the Tenure of Office Act – and acquitted. Impeachment proceedings were initiated against Richard Nixon in February 1974, but halted by his pre-emptive resignation in August. In December 1998, Bill Clinton was impeached by Congress – but acquitted by the Senate the following month.

It is no accident that these quasi-judicial measures are deployed so rarely, as they are invariably traumatic for the body politic. It is a measure of how far and how fast the Trump presidency has sunk that senior US politicians are already wondering how soon they will have to press the nuclear button of the constitution.

There is no question that, as the former adviser to Nixon and Clinton, David Gergen, put it this week we are in “impeachment territory”. Trump’s removal of James Comey as FBI director was not in itself improper, but the motivation behind the sacking almost certainly was.

Despite the insistence of White House officials that he was fired at the recommendation of the Justice Department over his handling of the Hillary Clinton email affair, the president himself told *NBC’*s Lester Holt that he had already decided to get rid of Comey because “this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.”

It is no such thing. According to a memo written by Comey, the president asked him to close down the federal investigation into former National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, and his alleged links with Russia. “I hope you can let this go,” Trump is reported to have said.

If this is as bad as it looks, the president could easily face charges of obstruction of justice – and perhaps worse, since he is also alleged to have revealed highly classified intelligence to the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and ambassador, Sergei Kislyak, in the Oval Office last week.

That said, the constitutional criteria for impeachment are open to broad interpretation. Civil officers of the United States may be impeached and removed for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanours”. For the process to be initiated, a simple majority of the House of Representatives must vote accordingly. The Senate then considers the case with the chief justice of the United States presiding. For a president to be removed from office, two-thirds of senators present must vote to convict: a high hurdle, by design.

Herein lies the problem. The ethical case against Trump is straightforward. The legal case grows stronger every day. But the process is inherently and irrevocably political. At present, the Republicans control both houses, and – for now at least – are immobilised by a combination of panic and partisanship. So soon after a hugely contentious presidential election, impeachment could do the GOP profound damage.

But the party will turn on a dime if it concludes that the political cost of impeachment is outweighed by the danger of standing by Trump. This week, a survey by Public Policy Polling found for the first time that more Americans want him to be impeached than oppose this measure of last resort. Do not expect articles of impeachment to be drafted in the near future. But watch this space, lest you miss the political downfall of the decade.